Hotels & hospitality
A running record of hospitality developments: new brands and conversions, executive appointments, union negotiations and strikes, licensing and occupancy tax changes, short-term rental rules and demand shocks. Reports name the properties, cities and dates. For readers who track the sector day by day rather than quarter by quarter.
Daily reporting on brand launches, management changes, labor disputes, occupancy tax rules and short-term rental regulation shaping hotel demand.
Hyatt's pipeline hit a record 148,000 rooms at year-end 2025, per its January announcement, while US brand conversions reached a record 1,497 projects — up 12% year over year — making reflagging the industry's main growth engine.
With more than 40,000 UNITE HERE hotel workers holding contracts up for renegotiation across 20-plus US cities — and the union warning of possible disputes in World Cup host markets — labor scheduling has become a summer-revenue risk for operators.
STR/CoStar data put March 2026 US RevPAR at $108.99, up 5.9% year over year, on occupancy of 64.9% and ADR of $168.06 — the strongest reading since the 2025 slowdown began.
Booking and Expedia apps inside ChatGPT, plus agentic trip planning in Google's AI Mode, moved from demos to live channels in late 2025 — pushing hotels to check how their inventory and rates read to machine intermediaries.
A year after paying up to €291.5 million for Ruby as its 20th brand, IHG expects all 20 open Ruby hotels on its systems by March 31, 2026 — the checkpoint that determines whether small-brand acquisitions pay off.
The American Hotel & Lodging Association's 2026 State of the Industry report projects direct hotel operations employment reaching about 2.2 million this year, even as more than half of surveyed properties report being somewhat or severely understaffed.
Full-year occupancy fell to 62.3% and RevPAR slipped year over year for the first time since 2020, per STR/CoStar, tightening the revenue math operators carry into 2026 budgets.